1. Field of the Invention
Lamp and diode pumped lasers particularly solid state lasers.
2. Description of Prior Art
Current fielded military laser range finders and target designators unfortunately waste considerable electrical energy supplied during their lasing process. This is true for both the flash lamp pumped and the laser diode pumped solid state laser systems. It is particularly devastating for the flash lamp pumped systems, since the conversion of electrical energy to laser energy is very poor to begin with. Due to the wideband spectrum of the flash lamp, only a small portion of the spectrum can be used to pump the solid state gain medium, the rest is just thermal waste. After the laser pulse peaks the lamp continues pumping although it is preferred that the laser pulse terminate sharply.
The excess electrical energy consumed by the laser devices leads to several undesirable consequences. The first consequence is the heavy drain on the power supply, which in the Army""s field environment is a battery. This drain shortens the operational life of the battery. The soldier operating the laser device must carry this battery, and spares, to complete a normal mission. A second consequence of the excess electrical energy consumption during the lasing process of laser devices is that the majority, if not all, of the excess electrical energy gets converted into thermal waste or heat. The generation of excessive heat leads to a limitation of the laser process operation, i.e. the laser gets too hot to operate. This obviously has a negative impact on the soldier""s mission. A third consequence of the excess electrical energy consumption during the lasing process is that it extends the re-charge time for the devices pulse forming network (PFN). The re-charge time may be shortened through other means such as increasing the size and/or number of the PFN capacitors, inductors, transformers, etc. but minimum size and weight of laser devices is a high priority for the military.
An optical output pulse maximum threshold anticipation and/or detection means is coupled to an electronic switch installed in the charging circuit of an optically pumped laser to prevent any further capacitor discharge after the laser pulse reaches a threshold optical output value.